Our trip to Cuba (June 7 - June 22, 1999)
Day 1 June 7th La Havana
Departure from SXM at 6pm. The plane is a YAK 42. No springs left in the seats. The plane is half full. We fly to Martinique first, then to Havana where we land around midnight. Food is cold and less than average for plane food, but LeRoy eats it anyway.
The Jose Marti airport is a beauty, more modern than anything we have seen in the Caribean, immigration officers make sure they do not stamp Lee's passport but stamp mine (French) with a small nondescript green mark.
It takes us long to go through customs because we carry all our dive gear in a large suitcase which weighs 70 lbs. We are kindly asked to open it. Other passengers carry with them TV sets, VCRs, electronic appliances. Once we tell the customs officer lady that it is SCUBA equipment we are bringing with us, she lets us go and we are allowed to proceed. Everybody seems young and quite happy, despite the early hour (2:30AM). We hire a taxi (Peugeot) to our hotel in old Havana for $18.00. The ride is a little over 30 minutes via a very wide and well lit avenue. At 3:00am, there are still lots of people in the streets, walking or talking, seemingly enjoying trhe coolness of the night. The taxi driver tells us that people go to bed very late in Havana.
We check in the Ambos Mundos Hotel in the heart of Old Havana. Ernest Hemingway wrote: "For whom the bell tolls" in room 511. The lobby is very inviting, with dark woods, a bar and a fountain. We are expected and given our room key. A bell boy takes our luggage and directs us to the old Otis elevator (wrought iron birdcage style, says LeRoy), which brings us to the 4th floor.
We crash in the queen size bed. See you manana.
Day 2 La Havana
We wake up hungry around 9AM.It is a beautiful day. We are directed to the 6th floor for Breakfast .There, we discover an open terrace with a heavy wood latticeceiling, decorated with dozens of plants, offering a very nice view over the older buildings and roofs of Havana.Lots of birds seem to be living in trees nearby and make lots of nice noise. Breakfast consists of eggs and ham, bread, butter, jelly , fresh mangoes, papayas, pineapple and very good coffee. No complaints.
We walk out of the Ambos Mundos towards the nearby Plaza de Armas, beautiful square with a statue of Manuel de Cespedes, 4 fountains, 4 Kapok trees. All around the Plaza are displays of very old books for sale, mostly in Spanish.
The buildings around the square look just wonderful, some already restored to their original splendor, others in the process of being beautified. Huge doors lead to inside gardens, tinted glass windows reflect the morning light.....Spanish influence very visible.
A few minutes from there is the Cathedral , situated on another very artistic and harmonious Plaza with more unique buildings. Few tourists.
We walk from there to the Calle Obispo, which is the Shopping street of Old Havana. Several stores offer TV sets and electronics priced in USD. We find a bank where I change $20 against 441 pesos, thinking it will be cheaper for us to pay for things in pesos, a post office, a local shop where you can only pay in pesos (not much in there). At the end of that street is the Parque Central with the famous hotel Inglaterra and the Opera. There you can see the most beautiful old american cars from the 40's and 50's. They are the american taxis.
We hire a velotaxi who will take us back to the hotel for $2.00. We are expecting a fax. LeRoy forgot his certification card and worries that he will need it later (he won't). Near the hotel, we take a few pictures of Cuban people who seem very happy to have their photo taken. A young man asks us if we want to buy cigars. cheap ... we decline. Lunch at the Open terrace of Cafe La Mina, chicken and pork skewers, fruit and beer Cristal. Cost $20.00.
More walking. Cubans seem indfferent to us, until we start speaking to them in Spanish, then they become very friendly and warm. Of course, near the bigger hotels, a few women and older men ask us for money. On one occasion, I give 2 quarters and the man takes off very happy. Begging could be a problem , but we notice the discreet presence of numerous uniformed soldiers who seem to have for mission to keep Cubans from harassing the tourists.
Every night we walked through the streets of Havana and always felt very safe. Around 6pm, it is time for the national cocktail: the Mojito: rhum, sugar, lemon, carbonated water, fresh mint. Not bad, and off we go for the evening walk on the Malecon, the wide avenue along the bay, declared a world heritage site by UNESCO. The most beautiful restored houses stand next to the dirtiest. A lady on the first floor has a relative fetch some water in a bucket from a cistern at street level and hoist it up to her using rope and pulley.
We walk abourt 2 miles, declining numerous offers for cigars and entertainment. We find the paladar we were looking for near the grandiose hotel Nacional. A Paladar is a government authorized (and taxed) private restaurant which offers basic Cuban cuisine only and can't have more than 6 tables (for 2).
We order rice and beans and 2 different kinds of pork dishes, one good, one horrible, salads, Mayabe beer (very good) and Coca Cola (the original), for $ 25.00. We take a cab back ($4.00) to the hotel.
A band plays salsa rhythms in a nearby cafe and muffled conversations reach us through the shutters.
It is 10pm and we are exhausted.
Day 3 La Havana
Today, we are visiting la Finca Vigia, Ernest Hemingway's house, in San Francisco de Paula, some 7 miles away from Havana. We get there by taxi ( $8.00). The visit is very interesting, despite the fact that you can't actually enter the house. Only through large open windows can you see Ernest's belongings, left just the way they were left 40 years ago: the typewriter and the animal skins and heads, the hundreds of books, the uniforms and shoes from World War II, the scale in the bathroom. The place is heavily guarded, since you are charged $5.00 per picture taken.
We are happy just looking and wandering around. I thought the visit was worth it and quite moving since Hemingway never came back to this house and commited suicide a year later in the USA.
We take another taxi to the Castillo del Morro, across from the City, overlooking the Bay of la Havana. The driver holds a degree in marketing and seems pretty happy to discuss life with a French woman and an American citizen. Most people we talked to seemed eager to talk about their lives and curious (but not envious) about ours.
At the Catstillo del Morro, newly restored fort, we are invited into the Harbour captain's office and given a tour of the place. A smiling 86 years old retired captain wants his picture taken with us and asks that we send him a flag from our country for his collection. We oblige.
Same thing happens at the lighthouse where we are given a complete detailed history and explanation of the functioning of the lighthouse in spanish. Some is lost in the translation. Lee is in a daze, starving. We eventually find a restaurant where we eat chcken a la criolla and fruits. We are the only customers in this beautiful place.
A Rambler 1958 takes us back to the Ambos Mindosa across the channel, through the underwater tunnel. There we negotiate a car rental for the next day. It will cost us $35.00 a day + $20.00 day insurance for a Suzuki 4 X 4. Deal !!!!
6:30pm is daiquiri time ! Walk some more on El Malecon. Dinner at the same open air Cafe, cool music, pink sky and Royal Palm trees. At 9:00 pm sharp, we hear the cannon from another nearby Fortress being fired, as it is done every evening. The well illuminated 45 foot marble statue of Christ seems to watch over the city.
Day 4 Still Havana
We take care of some vouchers that need to be exchanged, then walk to yet another Plaza: Plaza Vieja. It is raining. People wave at us from their windows. Two Cuban guys, siiting on the stairs of the the building we chose for protection ask us if we are interested in having a look at "the camera oscura" installed on top of that building. Having nothing better to do and not afraid of climbing the 6 flights of stairs, I follow George to the roof of this house.
I have no idea what a camera oscura is but George seems very excited about it.
As a mater of fact, it is very interesting and strange: a camera is installed on the roof (like a periscope) way above our heads and redirects via a mirror the picture onto a 6 foot wide horizontal parabolic screen in the darkened room where we stand. You adjust the height of that wooden screen to make the picture sharper. The room needs to be in complete darkness. The effect is amazing. It is similar to watching a movie looking down onto a round screen. The image is extremely sharp. George says there are only 5 cameras oscuras in the world and this one is a present from the British to the people of Cuba. Vive la reine!
After an excellent chinese lunch, nap at the Hotel. More daiquiris, more walking around, more food and music and pictures.
Day 5 On the road to Vinales
We rent a 4 X 4 Suzuki Sidekick (55.00 /day with insurance) and take off direction Vinales, about 100 miles east of Havana. The trunk is filled with our luggage. It takes us almost one hour to find our way out of Havana because so many streets are closed to circulation due to all the building restoration going on. Finally, we reach the Autopista.
There are very few cars driving on that fancy highway. As soon as we leave the city, we enter a landscape of plantations, sugar cane, corn , tobacco, manioc. Horses and cattle are everywhere, even on the highway. People hitch hike in the middle of the road, but we cannot give anybody a lift because of all the luggage we have.
Before reaching Pinar del Rio, we leave the Autopista to turn right onto a smaller but decent road which leads to the pretty village of Vinales. We find our pink hotel Los Jazmines overlooking the valley. It took us 3 hours to get there, but LeRoy has been driving so VERY carefully. The scenery is magnificent, the best we have seen in a very long time, reminiscent of the painted landscpaes of Southern China, with strange shaped mounds (called mogotes here) and blue-green 250 million years old mountains....
It looks so much like a giant tapestry that it seems odd when a man on horseback moves in that picture. It reminds me of the movie "What dreams are made of" with Robin Williams.
Red Flamboyants colour this fairy tale scenery and I can't stop filming the 200 degree-wide view.
Our room ($48.00) is strategically located on the 4th floor, at the angle of the new building. It seems that with a voucher from a Tour Operator, you get better rooms than when you just check in on site. Of course, we will realize later that we paid a very high price for the privilege, but this is another story.
Dinner is seved in the large dining room overlooking the swimming pool and the valley. The food is not too bad for the price ($15.00 for two). A trio of guitarists romances us so nicely that we buy one of their home-recorded audiotapes.
Day 6 To Maria La Gorda
After a sumptuous breakfast buffet (Cuban standards) I hire Paulino to guide me horebackriding into the fairy tale scenery. We walk in between the huge tobacco and manioc fields, greeting the workers who wave at us. He shows me the different plants, fruits, shows me the tobacco plant drying up under the palm roof huts, and we talk about his life, his family, his way of life. He says he does not have much, but he does not need that much, he is a happy man. He knows a few words of French - I love him. When we leave, we give him a nice pocket knife and one of our T Shirts. He picks 3 mangoes from a tree and gives them to us. Paulino makes 140 pesos or $7.00 a month. Time to leave this paradise to our final destination: Maria La Gorda...
The road has very little or no traffic. We fill up the gas tank at the Cupet service station. Gas is a dollar a liter. The nearer to MLG, the worse the road, but coming from St Maarten, potholes do not seem that big a deal to us.
This area was declared a reserve of the Biosphere. 2500 different plants have been documented, lots of them endemic to Cuba. Among these are the oldest and the smallest specimens found in the world. Finally, we can smell the Ocean, only 14 km away from MLG. The water is very clear, with a lighter tint near the shore and a much darker colour 100 feet away, which seems to indicate a serious drop off very close to land. The entrance to the resort is marked with several flags. The reception area is quite inviting. Next to it is the bar and a shop full of T Shirts, souvenirs, snacks, rhums and cigars.
A friendly young woman named Milagro shows us our bungalow, a few meters from the ocean but quite old and musty. We are told that in a few days, we can change to a newer room. At the dive shop, a sign indicates that the next dive is scheduled at 3:30pm. We change and check in, but the dive has been cancelled due to an approaching storm......
We hang around the bar, meet a couple of French and Finnish divers who have spent a few days here already and rave about the diving. Dinner times comes quickly and we find a buffet style meal where fried fish and chicken play an important part, along with rice, pasta salads and lots of delicious fresh fruits.
We prepare camera and video equipment for the next day. The storm never reached us. But the sky is very cloudy.
Day 7 Maria LA Gorda
At 9:00am.we meet with several other divers in front of the CMAS dive shop. All the equipment for rent is from Cressi Sub. A Frenchman is diving for the 2nd time, a Scotsman is quite experienced, and there is also a Chilean woman with her British boyfriend. We are all in the same group, under the responsibility of Louey, a tall gentle looking English-speaking Cuban.
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The dive boat is a former fishing boat with diesel engines that produce a thick black smoke when started.
Fortunately, we are not going far. Only 10 minutes from the dock, the captain "Candyman" anchors the boat, and Louey gives us a very detailed dive plan in English. Everybody has to follow him along the drop off, not deeper than 60 feet. After 40 minutes, everybody must surface.
The water is very clear, but there is not much to see. Some nice corals and sponges. Of course, we have been diving many places in the Caribbean and we are more difficult to please than a first-timer, but we are not impressed at all by this first dive. We don't see much fish either. After 40 minutes, we still have 1500 PSI left, but it is time to come up. We do not mind that much.
Lunch : same buffet as the night before, with a few variations.
Nap until the second dive.
This time, there are only 5 of us on the boat: French, Scottish, Danish, American and Cuban, 1 of each. Divemaster Franck gives us the dive plan half in Spanish, half in English.
This time, we don't dive deeper than 50 feet, but it is a beautiful site, with lots of yellow and purple sponges, shapely corals and seafans, large and friendly groupers, curious queen triggerfish, the water is very clear, except towards the end. When we surface, it is raining.
Again, we are only a few minutes away from the hotel and after rinsing some of our gear in the murky rinse tank, we meet at the bar with the other divers to exchange stories and taste some of the local drinks.
Everybody had a different way to reach Maria La Gorda from Havana (200 miles): taxi (3 hours, $120, very scary), hiring a private car ($50.00 + $5.00 fine because this is against the law), train + taxi ( 14 hours altogether)..... We think renting the Jeep was a good idea.
Buffet dinner with nice fresh tomatoes and more of the same. A french couple just back from deep sea fishing found a school of tuna half a mile from the hotel, when 5 tiger sharks came out of nowhere and started freeding furiously on the school of tuna. They are very excited. No night dive for us tonight, thanks!
Day 8 MLG
Still raining !
1st dive on a nice drop off 30 minutes away from the hotel. But where are all the fish that should be swimming by?
This time there are 8 divers on board: an American (Lee), 2 Danish young guys, a French couple and myself, a couple of French Canadians and a Scotsman. The French couple, being new at diving, dives after us, on a shallower site, which forces us to wait on the boat and in the rain for about one hour.
After lunch (rice fish and chicken), we move into a new nice "habitacion". Real luxury for MLG. Everything works, including hot shower and TV and who cares if you can't find one toilet seat in the whole resort??
The 2nd dive leaves around 3:30 pm. It is a beautiful drift dive in the 60 foot range, lots of swim throughs and caves through the coral. Thousands of silversides make for a beautiful picture and I hope that Lee will come up with a good one. We always end the dive with around 1500 PSI in our tanks and this is a little frustrating. But in a drift dive, you have to come up with everyone else, and the divemasters are very strict with times and depths (computers or not).
The different levels of experience of the divers are surprising. We thought everyone would be experienced, but it seems that Maria La Gorda, despite its remoteness, attracts all kinds of people.
More stories are exchanged at Happy Hour time. Favourite drinks are Mayabe beer and Tropicola.
Dinner (Chicken,rice,fish). Skinny cats and fat mosquitoes ever-present.
Day 9 MLG
Sunny wake up! At last! The ocean surface is like glass.
Morning dive on a very nice drop off (90 feet). Some large snappers, but still no pelagic. Lee finds a frogfish.
At lunch time, most of the hotel staff changes. Because MLG is too remote for the workers to go home every day (remember there is no public transportation and cars are out of the reach of most people), they work for 7 or 10 days straight, then get to rest for the same amount of time. So we say Goodbye to our divemasters, maids, bartenders, cook, waitresses, and get ready for the second dive with the new team.
It is close to a disaster: the plan was as such : the beginners will start their dive after the first experienced group enters the water for a drift dive. The boat will then pick us all up after an hour. The shallow dive is quite boring. Nothing much except some small stuff. Since we have to follow our new and fast-swimming divemaster, there is no time to hang around anything interesting or cameragenic.
After 75 minutes, most divers are out of air, so we surface, in a pouring rain. The sky and the Ocean have melted in a grey fog. We are about 3/4 mile off shore with no boat in sight ... after 15 minutes of whistling, waving, yelling, there is still no boat anywhere nearby (why did we leave our safety sausages in St Maarten ?). It rains very heavily now. This is not funny any more. Finally, after about 25 minutes, during which the group of beginners is picked up from the water, it is our turn. On the boat, nobody even realized that we had been gone for close to 1 hour and a half. Scary !!!!! Spanish expletives are exchanged between the crew. We decide to stay out of it. The whole thing is on tape! Got you!
Day 10 MLG
Sunny wake up. Lots of fruits for breakfast for me. Lee sticks to Ham and eggs.
The boat we have been using so far is out of commission so from now on , we will use the alternative fishing boat. This boat is most inconvenient, especially with its awful TWO-rung ladder hanging below the back platform.
This time, there are 15 divers on the boat, most of them with rental equipment strewn all over the floor. We gather ours and stack everything neatly in a corner, keeping a watchful eye over it at all times.
Divers are from Chili, the U.K, Scotland, Spain, Canada, USA, France.
Lee and I get in the water first. Average depth: 50 feet. A large Nassau grouper seems to be the guardian of a wide cave named "El salon de Maria". It is easy to swim into it and come out the other end. The water is quite clear at the beginning, but after several divers kick up the sand, it becomes murky. Beautiful yellow sponges decorate el salon de Maria and with a light, we can admire the brilliantly coloured ceiling of the cave.
Several large snappers seem quite agitated and follow us all along the dive which does not offer that much more. The Nassau grouper is a ham and seems very curious about Lee's camera.
To allow the beginners to dive, we change location and have to wait a good 45 minutes for them to resurface, ecstatic about their first experience.
We noticed all week long that the divemasters seemed to take very good care of the new divers and show a lot of patience. But the organisation of the dives, however, left a lot to be desired. Experienced divers who are used to taking care of themselves and who dive in buddy teams won't be allowed to dive on their own, even from the beach. On several occasions, we had to wait on the boat for over one hour for another group of divers to complete their dive before returning to the hotel. Boats (as well as some divemasters) are neither well kept nor maintained and smoke a lot, music is often loud.
Lunch is better than usual, with a greater variety of food, and even potatoes. It must be the new cook.
For the second dive of the day, we are paired up with a complete beginner. The plan is to not exceed a depth of 60 feet along a vertical wall. Fortunately for us, the beginner cannot equalize her ears and we end up following the divemaster to a depth of about 100 feet, through a serie of beautiful caves and canyons filled with silversides. The visual alarm on my video camera flashes, indicating moisture inside the housing. I won't be able to tape, but enjoy every minute of the dive. This place is splendid. For 25 minutes we remain in this underwater heaven then ascend to a shallower depth. The alarm stops flashing and I resume taping. I keep hearing dolphin-like sounds and signal to LeRoy and Frank. A few minutes later, we find ourselves surrounded by a pod of 15 bottlenose dolphins, weighing each over 200 pounds. They swim very fast past us , then swim back and pirouette and somersault, reaching and breaking the surface, then diving again towards us. In a minute it is over, and we scream with joy. We frantically try to catch up with them and take one good picture, one good shot. But they are gone. At the surface, everybody on the boat has seen them and once on board, we try to follow the pod for a mile or two. Again, with amazing speed,the dolphins appear out of nowhere for a short moment, but the boat is too slow to keep them interested for very long and they disappear once again in the vastness of the ocean.
What a magical, almost mystical moment! Everyone is touched by the encounter.
Frank the divemaster tells me that they often see dolphins here but seeing how excited the Cuban crew is, it seems unlikely to us this is such a frequent occurence.
At Happy Hour, we get to know Frank a little better, discussing mainly about the diving in and near Maria La Gorda. He tells us that there is a wall all along the western tip of the island, (at least 30 miles long) and that the best dives are farther away. He speaks about blue holes, sharks and giant turtles and Manta Rays, drawing a map on a paper napkin. They have taken tourists there before.
We ask to go there some day when it is only going to be us on the boat. We are not too sure if we believe everything he says. But we will keep asking until the end of our stay, unsuccessfully, and without explanation.
Day 11 MLG
After yesterday, we do not expect to be overwhelmed, but Captain Loeuy manages to take 8 of us on a very nice drop off in the 90 foot range. A huge Culebra Snapper seems curious about us and approaches within 25 feet. The water is very clear today and visibility averages 80 feet.
On the second dive, Frank guides us (4 divers) through each and every swim-through he can find, to the point that some of us get tired of it and stay above the drop off, where we can take it easy and swim more calmly. Again, there is a beginner on board. So after our dive, we change location and she goes underwater with an instructor for a good 45 minutes. We get back at the hotel after 6 pm.
From the telecommunication building, I place a phone call to St Maarten. I have to go through an operator who asks me how much time I want to speak. It costs $7.00 per minute so after she connects me, I talk to my daughter for 2 minutes exactly, before being cut off in the middle of a sentence ... my 2 minutes are up. I have just spent the average monthly salary of a Cuban citizen.
Later at the bar, we all gather to view the videotape of the past few days. Most workers have never been underwater and have no idea of what is going on down there. OHH and AHH punctuate the viewing. It feels good!
Day 12 MLG
This morning, Maricella, a lady doctor is on the boat and she checks divers' blood pressure. Amazingly, everybody passes.
Today is exploration time near the lighthouse. We swim for about one hour before the boat picks us up. There was not much to see, but we were warned that this was new territory for everybody. We are supposed to do a double dive this morning. We are pretty far from the hotel and we need to use up our 15 dives package, but one tank was left behind so we have to rush back to the hotel to pick it up. By then, it is too late to dive anywhere exciting, and the second dive is also somewhat disappointing.
It starts raining after lunch and I fall asleep, not eager to join the afternoon dive. Lee gets me out of bed and the boat takes off around 4pm with Greg the Scotsman, a British guy who has been traveling for the past 6 months and the two of us.
The vertical wall is incredibly beautiful. Visibility reaches over 100 feet. Black coral, gorgonians, yellow, purple and red sponged abound. The water is indigo. It is mesmerizing, despite the lack of pelagic life.
As we ascend to 50 feet, a vary large black grouper named Tito starts following us around. The fish is over 3 feet long and must weigh 300 lbs. Frank has brought some bread and starts feeding it. Several Nassau groupers join the crowd, along with a few queen triggerfish. Tito is especially photogenic and Lee shoots a whole roll right there.
DAY 13 . Departure from MLG
Today is Doctor Maricella's 30th Birthday. We talked a lot yesterday on the boat.
She studied medicine in Havana for 6 years plus two years of Subaquatic specialization. She normally is always on the dive boat, but was taking a course these last days. I wish I could have known her better but she is leaving again today to help the doctor at the Pinar del Rio hospital.
Divemaster Frank has decided he wants a copy of my video so he takes us to a wall where there is a chimney (a vertical tunnel) he loves. He plans the dive so that he will go first, then his brother with a bright light, then myself followed by Chris, another diver equipped with a light. The chimney entrance is at a depth of about 40 feet, like a dark hole in the reef. The passage is very narrow so I am surprised that Frank fits in (no offense). The passage then goes straight down for about 70 feet, finally forming an elbow that eventually opens up into the ocean at 146 feet.
Right eye rivetted to the camera, I follow the narrow spot of light provided by my predecessor. Sometimes it disppears and everything gets black. I bump my head several times against the reef. I can see nothing growing in this chimney, not enough light I suppose. It could be scary if anything went wrong in there. I concentrate on holding on to my camera and keep swimming and filming. I can see no light coming from behind.
Finally, a small patch of dark blue: the exit .... I film Frank who seems to be floating in space, nevertheless yelling at his brother into his regulator for kicking sand in my face .. I have no idea how long we were in there, but I did not like it that much. It was like being swallowed then excreted by some Gargantuan rock formation. Once out of the tunnel, I turn around to film Chris whose light had given out on him a long time ago. He is not a happy camper and will let everybody know how he feels once at the surface.
Can't blame him. It was a bit scary!
Lee is waiting at a shallower depth, it is beautiful there and for the first time while diving in Cuba, I nearly empty my tank before reaching the surface.
The reataurant has prepared some fishburger and fried plantains for our last lunch here. We pack once again, leaving a good dozen T Shirts to the dive team and souvenirs to the hotel staff and depart Maria La Gorda around 3pm. We are going back to Havana with a stopover in Vinales. Weather is uncertain. Lee drives VERY slowly for my taste but I keep quiet.
In San Juan y Martinez, 50 miles from MLG, we get a flat tire. It is now pouring down rain. Fortunately, Lee quickly locates a service station. Two guys quickly change the wheel, but they can't fix the tire, severely damaged by the horseshoe that poked two holes in it and it cannot be fixed here. A teenager knows someone who can fix it for us, so despite the unabating rain, we follow his bicycle through a labyrinth of small streets. Finally, he stops at some tiny shack, goes back and forth a few times, brings a friend, a tool, a relative, another tool, and to make a long story short, gets us back in action one hour and 12 USD later. Unfortunately, when we want to put air in the so-called fixed tyre, one hole is still there. We have been taken to the cleaners. For the first time in Cuba. I am a little sad..... but I understand.
Without a fifth wheel, and the night approaching, Lee is even more careful driving. I am upset, so of course, we miss the exit to Vinales and drive 30 miles too far on the Autopista. We turn around (no problem) and finally reach Hotel Los Jazmines at sunset. The rain has stopped and he valley looks more spectacular than ever under the dimming light.
After a nice long shower in a bathroom with a toilet seat, we head out towards the restaurant. Tonight there is a very decent buffet for $10.00 per person. Guitarists from the trio Romance are still singing beautiful Cuban songs. We eat, drink and enjoy the music and the starry night.
We go to bed in a very good mood. Once again Vinales has operated its magic.
Day 14 : Back to Havana
We don't have to be in Havana before 1pm, so we decide to drive to the village of Vinales, a mile down the road. It is Father's Day, and everybody is carrying flowers or cakes. We find a garage that can fix our tire and charges us $2.00 for it.... everybody seems to be busy and happy. The village in istself is quite neat, very clean, with several small hotels and restaurants. A maid at the hotel gives me a gardenia, Paulino seems happy to see us again and gives me a Jasmine flower.
We leave the hotel arond 10 am. Havana is only 50 miles away via the Autopista. Lots of Cattle, horses and even vultures on the Autopista today. You have to be real careful driving. About 20 miles from Havana, we get another flat, same wheel. This time it is not raining, it is actually very hot. Lee changes the tire promptly while I tape it all, but the rest of the trip is pretty silent. We can't have another flat and hope that the man in Vinales fixed this tire well....
Surprisingly, we find our way into Havana and our hotel much easier than we thought. After we give the car back, we check in our suite. For an extra $20.00, we get the best room in the hotel, at the angle of the building, with 2 balconies, 3 windows, a queen size bed, and a bathtub.
We spend the afternoon shopping for souvenirs, walking and drinking daiquiris. After a nice dinner of shrimps and chicken at Cafe La Mina, we walk some more through old Havana. This is our last night in Cuba.
Day 15. En route to St Maarten
Compared to Maria La Gorda and Vinales, this is a noisy place, and I have to get up in the niddle of the night to close the windows. The next morning, we take a walk on El Prado, enjoying the sight of schoolchildren playing baseball under the trees. Lee wanted to visit the Museum of the Revolution nearby, but it is closed today.
At 11am, we say our goodbyes to Havana. (sigh). A mad taxi driver gets us to the airport in no time.
To make another long story short, Cubana Airlines cancelled their stopover in St Maarten, so we were rerouted to Guadeloupe and Martinique, where we had to spend the night, after a bomb alert at the airport. The next day around 3pm, after a 24 hours long journey, we arrived in St Maarten. In Havana, we were asked by Cubana $200.00 for excess luggage (the SCUBA gear), but I managed to convince the supervisor to drop it. I think he liked my Spanish. The plane, a Yak 42, was not even half full. There were springs in the seats.
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